The Afterfire
by Fenix Evendir
Summary: Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura find themselves attempting to fulfill an impossible mission in a ravaged city plagued by monstruous creatures. Trying to evade danger and gather information from the few survivors, they immerse themselves in this underworld.


The warm breeze greeted Sasuke's limbs as he yawned and gently opened his eyes. The sky glowed with a lurid hue of orange, opaqued by an endless murk of reddish clouds. Sasuke stood up dropping the ragged blanket that lay upon him and looked out from the crumbling concrete crenellations of the ruined building. Before him stood a ravaged city of fallen tenements, shattered glass, barren parks, cracked streets, and naked, tottering skyscrapers. A few blazing particles rained down occasionally, trailing fire in the distance of their wake and causing clouds of ashes to lift up when they collided with the dust, metal, and stone of the already ruined buildings. It would be well to hope not to find themselves under one of those meteors' targets. They were receding now, however, and there was cause for at least a little hope.

Sasuke looked up, the roof seemed sturdy enough, regardless of the gaping hole that came well down through the wall and through which he now admired the ruinous skyline of New York. It was better than sleeping downstairs, even with the risk of the meteors. Things came out there,below,at night, things that lived in the darkness-- horrible things. He looked down at his two companions, naruto sprawled out in the middle of the room and sakura, with her side propped slightly up against the wall. It would be time to go soon.

"Hey, sleeping beauty," he said coolly to Naruto, prodding him with a foot. "Wake up, loser. Come on"  
Naruto moaned and twisted himself to face the opposite direction, muttering something about ramen. Sasuke pulled off the cover to reveal a skinny, pale boy in a dirty orange jumpsuit. "Ugh," sasuke lamented, wishing there had been some ramen about, and reluctantly applying a quick dart of the index finger at a point halfway between Naruto's armpit and his heart. Naruto felt a sudden pang and a jolt of pain and ticklishness throughout his body.

"GAHHHHHhahaha!" cried naruto, not knowing wether to yell or to laugh, and doing both. "OWWW!AHHhehehe!AIHahaha"  
Sasuke walked away from the contorting figure, knowing it had probably been a bad idea to cause so much racket. He came over to sakura and shook her shoulder softly. She woke up quietly, looking up longingly at sasuke's eyes. He didn't pay much attention to them though. He briskly tossed a nutrient bar at each of them from the main sack and proceded to strap it onto his back.

"We have to go. Now"

"Why? What happened?" asked sakura as her vision came into focus and the sweet, soggy taste of the nutrient bar brought back feeling to her flacid nerves. Sasuke slowly drew his face out through the huge hole in the room, looking for a foothold in the side of the run-down edifice by which to escape. " We've stayed here too long," he said as a protrusion of rock caught his eye. "The white-wings will be here soon. Come on."

They jumped out from the gap and scaled to the very top of the building. What remained of it was twenty stories high. The city spread before them, blazing in the surreal heat. Whisps of distorted air rose out from the steaming structures, reaching Team 7's feet like ghostly hands trying to cling on to living flesh. A tinge of coolness brushed past Sasuke's cheek. The heights were less hot than the surface, that was another advantage of trying to stay above.

However, the lofty terraces had a disadvantage and it was flying straight at the three leaf ninja. Though the rooftops were considerably safer during the night, anyone out in the open during the day was substantially exposed to the pale-winged scavengers that now came into view in the sky. Three tiny t-shapes appeared out of the grisly orangeish clouds headed straight at Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke.

"Shit!" said Sasuke. But he had known, though hoping against it, that they were already running late (what with Naruto's revealing screams) and that it had been horribly wrong to have let Jarred Grinson know the location of their hideout. Sakura was confused.

"But... but why?" she said as the three of them sprinted from rooftop to rooftop skillfully."I don't see how they could have found us out. This must all be a coincidence"

"A pretty unlucky coincidence, don't you think?" chimed in Naruto, his senses finally stabilized.

"It's that friend of yours Sakura. That bastard, Grinson," said Sasuke with a tinge of revulsion. "We should have never trusted him"

"I don't believe that"

"There's no other possbility. That kiss he gave you yesterday, on the cheek. I found him dead last night with a sack full of food and crystals"

"You let that bastard give you a KISSS?!" naruto yelled indignantly jealous.

"It was nothing. I didn't think much of him. I thought he just wanted to help. He was so nice to me... I'm sorry sasuke-kun"

"We can't slip up like this again," he answered.

"We won't," said Naruto calmly."I'm tired of this pointless, endless information gathering"

"What else do you suggest we do?" Sasuke snided at the affron made to his leadership.

Naruto looked straight ahead and said, "We'll go to the stadium"

Sasuke mulled over the daring plan. He had known well before that it was neccessary--eventually. He was scared of it, for in a way, it meant defeat. He knew Naruto felt the same way and marvelled at the decision. He said, "If we get out of this alive"

The White-Wings had grown considerably behind their backs. Sakura turned fearfully to look back at them and saw sheer wrath in the now-visible vicious green eyes of the monstrous angels. The three of them kept running, leaping, darting as fast as they could, but it was evident that the beasts were gaining on them. The buildings below them would only serve to corner themselves into slaughter. Pretty soon they would have to turn around and face the flying aberrations.


End file.
